Monday, January 30, 2017

Ban Trump from Britain

An online petition to stop President Trump's planned state visit to the UK has raised almost 1.5 million signatures in two days. The petition, on the UK government website, needed only 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate by the UK parliament. The government claims that "petitions which reach 100,000 signatures are almost always debated".

You can see where people in the UK have signed the petition to prevent Trump's state visit on this interactive map. If you turn on the 'percentage of constituents' option then you can view a choropleth layer showing where the highest proportion of voters have voted to stop Donald Trump from meeting the Queen. In some parts of London 7% of voters have already signed the petition.

The petition is not actually about stopping the President from visiting the UK. It just wants to stop it being an official state visit and protect the Queen from 'embarrassment'. If the petition does go to parliament then it should be interesting to hear Members of Parliament debating how the President might embarrass the Queen and why she needs protecting from his bigly hands.